Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
13:45 | Mathew Sikorski relates his family's odyssey during and after the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, which led to separation from his father and his exile to forced labor in Hameln, Germany. (Warsaw Uprising and Exile- Part 1 of 2)
Keywords : Mathew Sikorski Warsaw Poland Warsaw Uprising Hameln Germany
Mathew Sikorski was a 10 year old boy in Warsaw when the Nazis invaded Poland. He describes the effect on his family, the terrible acts of the occupying force, and the close call when an artillery shell hit his apartment.
As a young boy in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation, Mathew Sikorski witnessed many roundups of civilians in the streets, including this incident when he encountered German soldiers while riding home on his bicycle.
Although he was just a boy when Nazis forced the Jews of Warsaw into a walled ghetto, Mathew Sikorski has vivid memories of this time, including the heroics of Irena Sendler and Maximilian Kolbe, who saved thousands of Jews from the death camps.
Mathew Sikorski relates his family's odyssey during and after the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, which led to separation from his father and his exile to forced labor in Hameln, Germany. (Warsaw Uprising and Exile- Part 2 of 2)
Several unusual events during his time in forced labor in Hameln, Germany, are recalled by Polish exile Mathew Sikorski, including close encounters with attacking Allied planes.
Polish exile Mathew Sikorski recalls the joy of liberation when Allied troops entered the town of Hameln, Germany where he and his mother were assigned to work in a blanket factory.
Mathew Sikorski tells how he attempted to find out the details of his father's death in a concentration camp and then opines on the greater moral issues regarding the Nazi and Soviet occupations of his Polish homeland.
